


Belonging To You

by Rhymefire



Series: A Sailor's Life For Me [2]
Category: Sunless Sea
Genre: Fluff, Other, Smut, canon-compliant tentacles, gender-neutral captain, half-sea monster captain, seriously the Nacreous Survivor is a romance option
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 08:28:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15725688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhymefire/pseuds/Rhymefire
Summary: The captain is in love with Hettie. The captain wants to mate with Hettie. The captain is half sea-beast. This might be a problem.





	Belonging To You

**Author's Note:**

> I may be in love with the fact that your captain can be half sea-beast in Sunless Sea. It's such a cool thing to put in! Erik, how are you such a terrifyingly adorable creature? How??? This takes place after chapter 7 of A Culinary Expedition.

Erik couldn’t contain their nerves when they opened the door to their den. Townhouse. That was what humans called it. Half sea-beast as they were, sometimes the ingrained cultural differences proved impossible to get rid of. They practically salivated at the thought of having Hettie inside their den. Even their father had never allowed mother into his domicile.

Predictably, Hettie made a beeline for the kitchen. Seeing her rummaging through cupboards and poking at his stove made their insides quiver. She was making herself at home without a thought. How… _intimate_.

They would have carried her upstairs right then and there if she hadn’t pressed a cup of honey-fungus tisane into their hands and cracked open a jar of bottled eel-flesh. She picked out a strip of meat and held it up to the light. “This will be amazing! Maybe I’ll grill it. Have you ever tried grilled eel?” Erik shook their head. They preferred their meat raw and dripping. Hettie did an excited little dance and clapped her hands. “Great! I’ll make some. You’ll love it. It’s just about the best thing you can do with eel apart from pies, but Poissonnier wants to make some eel pies later so I’ll do that with him later. This is just for you. Don’t tell the crew, okay?” She winked and Erik’s insides twisted pleasantly.

This human was going to be their undoing. They hid their grin behind the tisane. They loitered around the kitchen to watch her work. Watching Hettie cook was one of their favourite pastimes. She moved through the kitchen as though she owned it, snatching up ingredients that Erik didn’t know they had. From what they gathered, she planned on soaking the eel in a marinade of some sort before cooking it. Erik couldn’t help but count the minutes as she worked. Nothing short of a Wild Word could break her focus when she cooked, and those had no place in the bedroom. Well, there were a few that might be interesting to try on her. Purely from a position of research, mind you.

They put the cup down before they accidentally snapped it. It took exactly 28 minutes for Hettie to pronounce the marinade finished. She rolled her sleeves down and looked at it proudly. “It’s perfect.”

Erik resisted the urge to toss the stupid marinade out the window. They stalked over to her and scooped her up. She yelped and clutched at their shoulders. They nuzzled her neck. “You’re perfect.”

The captain carried her up to their bed and settled her into it. Erik couldn’t stop kissing her. Her lips opened up beneath theirs. Her occasional nips were not helping matters as they were trying not to completely lose control and rip her clothes off. They restrained her momentarily. Control was important. Their father had lost control and shoved an egg into their mother’s lungs. Hettie would not like that. Even though the thought made the captain’s shadow flicker hungrily.

“Hold still,” they growled into her ear. She shivered and Erik buried their nose into the crook of her neck. The unmistakable scent of arousal soothed the captain’s more toothy thoughts. Carefully, they peeled her clothes off. Erik couldn’t help stroking her and reveling in the softness of her skin. They’d never actually seen a human naked before. She lacked the scaly patches that they had, but that was only intriguing. How soft was she?

Hettie laughed and reached for the necklace’s clasp. “You forgot this.”

They hissed and grabbed her hands. “No. Keep that on. You’ll need it.”

She hesitated, but they soothed her with a kiss. They carefully ran a clawed finger across her chest and she twined her arms around their neck. Erik made a mental note that she really liked that. She sank her teeth into their neck and pushed the captain down. She straddled them and Erik knew that even if she panicked and ran they would never be able to erase the memory of her weight on their hips.

She smiled and took off Erik’s mask. The third eye the mask kept blinded snapped open to reveal the infrared spectrum and Erik’s breath caught in their throat. They could see the blooms of heat across her body and couldn’t stop their eyes from wandering down to a tantalizing pinpoint of heat between her thighs. They were just about to touch that when she unbuttoned their shirt and ran her fingers down their chest.

They couldn’t stop staring at the whispers of heat her fingers ignited in their cool flesh. She found a patch of scales and her mouth fell open slightly. Hettie leaned closer to examine them. She tapped a nail against them. “Can you feel that?” Erik nodded. She nibbled her lip, and then nibbled a nipple to stiffness. The captain keened softly and held her close. She smiled against their skin.

Erik’s father had described mating as fast and violent. They had never dreamed that humans possessed an unnatural talent for drawing it out to the point of madness. A sea-beast would have finished and moved on several minutes ago, but the human on top of them insisted on teasing Erik and drawing just out of reach when they reached for her. Humans were terrifying. She might actually drive them crazy. Was this how humans always mated? Had she treated other humans to this slow, tantalizing torture? The thought made Erik growl and tighten their grip.

Hettie laughed and rolled her hips. The captain snarled and arched upwards to meet her. She was a spitfire. A bundle of flame and heat that might burn them to ash. What a delightful way to die.

She pulled their pants down and tossed them aside. She grinned lopsidedly, “Not hard yet? I can fix that.” Erik’s brow furrowed. What did she mean? Hettie cupped them and Erik startled underneath her. Heat! Warmth! Were hands supposed to be used this way? She stilled and frowned. Hettie yanked their undergarments down and gasped softly.

The captain had to clear their throat before forming words. “Are you alright?”

She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “You don’t….” Her fingers explored the tightly clustered tentacles between their thighs and the captain bit their lip to stifle the sounds that threatened to rip from their throat. Erik prepared themselves for her to gather her things and leave. Erik had initiated this expecting something strange, but she hadn’t.

Hettie did something Erik never could have predicted. She stroked the tentacles softly until they unfurled beneath her fingertips. She grinned wickedly at him. “That’s better.” Erik stared at her, eyes wide and curious. She twined several tendrils around her fingers and tugged gently. Erik couldn’t help but moan under her unexpected touch. She lowered her head between their thighs and they practically jackknifed off the bed before realizing that she wasn’t going to bite. They groaned wantonly, positive that mouths were not meant to be used that way. This woman was insane. They hardly minded.

She giggled and straddled their hips again. She took some of their slick tendrils in hand and guided them to where she wanted them. She nipped Erik’s ear. “In here, okay?”

Erik clutched her wordlessly as she rocked against them. Impossible to describe. Impossible to think of anything nicer than this. She’d stolen the words from their lips. All Erik could do was keen and whimper against her. They extracted a tendril from her body and began to explore the other parts of her slick heat. They brushed against a nub of hardened flesh that made her gasp. Hettie nipped their throat. “So that’s how you want to play?” she asked.

Before Erik could say that they had no idea what she was talking about, one of her fingers pushed inside them. “That’s not meant for that,” they babbled. She arched a brow and rubbed against a spot inside them that made Erik keen harshly. The pleasure was far too intense. Too much. It would scorch them. This human would cheerfully immolate them from the inside out. Erik rutted against her wildly.

They sank their teeth into her neck (they had just enough presence of mind to avoid breaking her skin) and it only made her writhe faster against them. She tilted her head to the side and they took the unspoken invitation to bite and mark her skin. She tasted so good. Their forked tongue lapped against her soft skin and she moaned into their ear. “You’re mine now,” she purred. Earlier in the evening, Erik had expected to be saying this to her, but this worked too. It was impossible to deny the thrill that her words ignited in their bones.

The waves of pleasure began to build inside them. Erik began to let themselves be pulled apart with it, but Hettie slowed her movements. Erik hissed at her. Wicked creature! She laughed and ran a finger across their lips. “Who do you belong to?” she asked. They could have drowned in the playful gleam in her eyes.

Erik narrowed their eyes and moved their tendrils inside her. She gasped. A thrill of triumph ran through the captain. Apparently she hadn’t realized just how prehensile they were. Then another finger joined the one inside him and teased just around the spot she’d been rubbing. They squirmed underneath her to try to shift the teasing fingers into place. They needed this! Their body thrummed and jittered with need. It was worse than the call of the wet. Worse than bloodlust. Erik whispered her name like a prayer. She smirked and continued to slow her movements until she’d nearly stopped completely. Erik couldn’t take anymore of this teasing. “You,” they panted. “You.”

She nodded and thrust savagely against him. A few quick thrusts sent them both careening over the edge. The captain went boneless underneath her. Hettie kissed them sweetly and curled against them. Erik let their fingers play against her warm skin. “That’s my creature.” Her voice was thick with lingering pleasure. She carded a hand through their hair. Erik arced into her touch like a cat. “My good sea-creature.”

They nuzzled. “I’m only half sea-beast.”

She shrugged and held them close. “Close enough.”  They couldn’t help but laugh at that.

Erik couldn’t have begun to imagine that this might happen. That they’d have the human they loved falling asleep beside them. It filled the aching void they hadn’t even known they carried. Their shadow flickered against her skin contentedly. She sighed and fell asleep against them.

Normally Erik only needed a few hours of sleep a night. Three hours or so was enough to fully energize them. It left them stalking about the ship listening to their human crew’s whispering dreams and the deeper whisper of the sea in the night. More than one sailor had startled awake to find the captain prowling about on deck, but they inevitably forgot by morning.

Erik fell asleep hoping against hope that the human woman beside them wouldn’t forget.

* * *

 

Unable to sit still, Erik dressed and stalked around their den for a bit. A sound from upstairs sent them settling carefully onto a chair and preparing for her to have forgotten. What would they do if she had forgotten? The thought of never touching her again sent them hissing, so clearly that wouldn’t work. They fingered the edges of the mask.

Hettie ran down the stairs and ignored Erik completely in favour of launching herself at the fridge. She cursed. “My marinade melted! The eel just dissolved into it.” She groaned.

Erik stuffed the pain deep down and rose from the chair. Drawing close to her was a torment. She’d forgotten. “I’ll buy you more pickled eel,” they offered. They forced a laugh and kissed her on the forehead. It tore their insides apart not to linger. It was likely the last kiss they’d ever be able to give her.

Hettie flung her arms about their neck and the captain stiffened. “Of course,” she said. “You’re my sea-creature, right?”

They grabbed her and forced her away a bit. “You remember?” Even to them their voice sounded too harsh.

She tilted her head. “Course I do. What kind of silly question is that, Erik? By the way, you ripped one of my buttons off. Be gentler next time with my clothing.”

Next time? Relief flooded their veins and Erik tugged her closer. They buried their nose into her neck and purred against her soft form. They really did belong to this woman. They thrummed with love and affection. They could only hope that she felt it too. “Of course.”


End file.
